implementing organization reform strategies in state
TRANSCRIPT
429 PAQ FALL 2009
IMPLEMENTING ORGANIZATIONAL REFORM
STRATEGIES IN
STATE GOVERNMENTS
KUOTSAI TOM LIOU
RONNIE KOROSEC
University of Central Florida
ABSTRACT
This paper examines the implementation of organizational
reform strategies in state governments. It uses national survey data to
examine the implementation of twelve reforms strategies that cover
three areas: workforce reduction, work redesign, and system change.
The paper further tests the relationship between reform strategies,
individual characteristics, and management factors. The management
factors are based on objective state grading data in five areas: financial
management, capital management, human resources management,
information technology, and managing for results. The empirical
findings show that while public managers tend to be conservative and
cautious in the implementation of reform strategies, they are also likely
to adopt a complete package of related reform strategies in their
implementation plans, rather than a single effort. The findings also
support the relationship between organizational reforms, the length of a
public manager‟s tenure in government service, and the state‟s
performance on capital management and information technology
issues. Implications of the findings are presented in order to enhance
future public management reform studies.
INTRODUCTION
Since the 1990s, we have witnessed a number of
new reform ideas and trends designed to promote effective
public management. Major reform trends have included
the idea of total quality management (TQM), reinventing
government, National Performance Review (NPR), New
Public Management (NPM), President Bush‟s management
PAQ FALL 2009 430
agenda, the human capital movement, and other research on
improving governance (Rainey, 2003). Along with these
reform efforts, new managerial ideas have been
recommended to improve the profession of public
administration. Some of these include issues relating to
quality concerns, customer satisfaction, mission-driven and
results-oriented government, empowerment and
downsizing, strategic planning, performance measurement,
networking and partnership approaches. Based on different
theories and philosophies, reforms have been developed to
change the behavior of public employees, simplify the
structure of government agencies, decentralize decision
making processes, measure public service outcomes, and
develop a new culture of public management.
Among all of the recent reform ideas, one that has
been of considerable interest to both theorists and
practitioners, alike, is the reinventing government
movement. This restructuring effort was first promoted by
the federal government in Gore‟s National Performance
Review (1993) and later expanded to many state and local
governments (National Commission on the State and Local
Public Service, 1993). In recent years, many researchers
have examined the reinventing government movement
among federal agencies (e.g., Thompson, 2000), state
agencies (e.g., Brudney, Hebert, Wright, 1999) and local
governments (e.g., Kearney, Feldman and Scavo, 2000;
Moon and deLeon, 2001). Despite the importance of
reinvention ideas, these studies have reported inconsistent
findings regarding the implementation of reform activities
and the impact of environmental factors on these reforms.
The purpose of this study is to examine the
implementation of organizational reform strategies among
state governments. The reform strategies studied here are
related to major ideas emphasized in the reinventing
government movement, including cutting red tape,
streamlining operations, empowering employees, and
431 PAQ FALL 2009
reducing redundancy (Gore, 1993). In addition to
implementation strategies, we are also interested in
studying the effect of several individual and management
factors on reform strategies. To achieve this, our work
provides a review of research theories and issues, and
provides a discussion of issues relating to the
implementation and correlates of these reforms.
RESEARCH THEORIES AND ISSUES
Lessons from Previous Studies
To improve the operation of public agencies, public
administration scholars and practitioners have emphasized
many reform movements over several decades. Before the
1990s, for example, we experienced a series of reforms that
attempted to improve the operation of the federal
government (Moe, 1992). These reform efforts were
reported in many commissions or committees on reforms,
including The Keep Commission (1905-1909, under
President T. Roosevelt); The President’s Commission on
Economy and Efficiency (1910-1913, under President Taft);
The Joint Committee on Reorganization (1921-1924, under
President Harding); The President’s Committee on
Administrative Management (1936-1937, under President
F. Roosevelt); The First Hoover Commission (1947-1949,
under President Truman); The Second Hoover Commission
(1953-1955, under President Eisenhower); The Study
Commissions on Executive Reorganization (1953-1968,
under Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson); The Ash
Council (1969-1971, under President Nixon); The Carter
Reorganization Effort (1977-1979); and The Grace
Commission (1982-1984, under President Reagan). These
reforms have introduced many important management and
analytical techniques to change government structures and
operations, including: scientific management,
administrative principles, neutral competence,
PAQ FALL 2009 432
management-by-objectives, representation, executive
leadership, performance appraisal, and the development of
professionalism.
The National Performance Review (NPR, 1993)
represented one of the latest efforts to improve the
management of American governments. Influenced by
Osborne and Gaebler‟s reinventing government work
(1992), the NPR identified many root problems associated
with management of federal government agencies, and
attempted to foster change by encouraging them to become
more entrepreneurial (Gore, 1993). The problems
associated with the federal government included out-of-
date bureaucratic rules and procedures, hierarchical
organization designs and structures, political issues, and
distrust in public employees. The NPR‟s suggestions for
creating entrepreneurial organizations are based on such
principles as: (1) cutting red tape and asking employees to
be accountable for achieving results; (2) putting customers
first and insisting on customer satisfaction; (3) empowering
employees to achieve more effective outcomes through
labor-management cooperation, and employee training and
assistance; and (4) reexamining programs and procedures
and re-engineering how employees do their work to make
government work better and cost less.
Many of the reinventing government ideas were
later emphasized by state and local governments. For
example, the National Commission on the State and Local
Public Service (1993, the so-called Winter Commission)
emphasized many similar ideas to promote high
performance for state and local governments, The
Commission‟s suggestions included: (1) empowering
leaders to act by putting them in charge of lean and
responsive agencies; (2) recruiting and nurturing
knowledgeable and motivate employees; (3) giving
employees the freedom to be more innovative in
accomplishing the agency‟s mission; and (4) involving
433 PAQ FALL 2009
private citizens in the business of government.
Besides the recommendations provided by the
reform committees, many public administration researchers
have collected data and conducted empirical studies to
examine the implementation and effect of the reinvention
movement. At the federal level, Thompson (2000)
examined the impact of NPR by conducting a broad review
of government-wide survey results with an in-depth
investigation of the Social Security Administration. He
found that many of the NPR‟s higher-order objectives have
not been met on a systemic basis and pointed out
implementation errors that are related to political
exigencies (e.g., diversion of funds away from capacity-
enhancing purposes) and design flaws (e.g., the
contradictory elements between downsizing and innovation
and employee buy-in).
For state governments, Brudney, Hebert, and
Wright (1999) examined the extent to which state agencies
implemented 11 reinvention reforms. They reported that
these agencies selectively adopted some specific
reinvention reforms, that a few states were more active than
others in reform measures, that agency leaders attempted to
implement several of the reforms rather than just one, and
that a concerted reinvention movement did not appear to be
underway across state governments. In their study of
reinvention of public personnel administration among state
governments, Kellough and Selden (2003) also noticed that
a broad set of personnel reforms were adopted to promote
reinvention ideas, and that there was significant variation
among states in their willingness to implement dramatic
changes to their personnel systems.
Similar to the state experiences, researchers have
also studied the reinvention management ideas among local
governments. For example, Kearney, Feldman and Scavo
(2000) studied city managers attitudes towards and actions
taken to implement principles of reinventing government
PAQ FALL 2009 434
(including 16 attitude items and 12 actions items). They
reported that despite the fact that a large majority of
managers supported key principles of reinvention, a smaller
proportion of managers actually took action to recommend
adoption of reinvention programs. Similarly, Moon and
Deleon (2001) examined the adoption of 12 reinvention
items. Not only did they suggest that many chief
administrators were cautious about the outcome of
reinvention efforts, they also found that reinvention values
were widely held by chief city administrators, and that
reinvention programs were diffused into many municipal
governments.
In addition to the study of new reinvention
strategies, public administration researchers have examined
different factors that may be related to the adoption or
implementation of reform ideas. The factors considered
and tested are grouped in different categories, including, for
example, environmental and organizational contexts
(Kellough and Selden, 2003); managerial/political values,
socio-economic and institutional factors (Moon and
deLeon, 2001); community and local government
characteristics (Kearney, Feldman, and Scavo, 2000); and
reform effort, agency type, agency characteristics,
environmental influence, and agency director‟s background
and attitudes (Brudney, Hebert, and Wright, 1999). These
studies have provided inconsistent findings about the effect
of environmental factors on the reinvention strategies.
They have emphasized the importance of further
investigation to examine the implementation of various
types of reform strategies and to clarify the impact of
additional factors on the reform implementation.
Issues in This Study
To study organizational reforms among state
governments, we used 12 reform strategies that address
three major areas of workforce reduction, work redesign,
435 PAQ FALL 2009
and system changes (Cameron, 1994). Workforce
reduction focuses on headcount and elimination of
employees, including such activities as attrition, layoffs,
early retirement, and buy-out packages. Work redesign
focuses on jobs (levels and units) and elimination of work,
consisting of such activities as combining functions,
merging units, redesigning jobs, and eliminating layers.
Systemic change focuses on culture and the elimination of
the status quo, including such activities as „involving
everyone‟ in planning and redesigning activities,
simplifying processes, promoting change from the bottom
of the organization up to the top, and targeting hidden
costs.
The 12 reform strategies were selected on the basis
of two issues. First, these strategies are important topics in
the study of general organizational management because
they include major components of employees, jobs,
structures, behaviors, processes, and changes (Rainey,
2003). Next, the reform items are also closely related to
key principles of reinventing government, such as cutting
red tape, empowering employees, and reexamining
programs and procedure (Gore 1993). It is important to
notice the difference between the present study and
previous studies. While previous studies examined items
related to general reinvention ideas (e.g., employee
training, strategic planning), this study focuses on major
areas of organizational management (e.g., employees,
structure, and system changes). The inclusion of these
strategies will provide an opportunity to test the findings of
previous studies and make additional contributions to the
study of public management reform. Our first research
question is, “What are popular organizational reform
strategies that are implemented in state governments?” We
hypothesize that public managers will like those reform
strategies that cost less and are easy to implement because
they are less time consuming and involve fewer political
PAQ FALL 2009 436
issues.
Similar to previous studies, this study also examines
the relationship between environmental factors and reform
strategies. Specifically, we focus on the effect of individual
characteristics and managerial factors on reform strategies.
The individual characteristics include manager‟s current
position and title, the number of years he/she has been in
his/her current position, and the number of years he/she has
been employed by government. These variables were also
tested in previous studies of reinventing government (e.g.,
Kearney, Feldman, and Scavo, 2000). Our second research
question is, “Are the individual characteristics of a public
manager related to reform strategies?” We hypothesized
that public manager‟s position and tenure will affect their
view on reform strategies. For example, senior managers
may not support reform strategies with fundamental
changes.
In addition to the influence of individual variables,
we also tested the effect of external institutional variables
on reform efforts. We focused on five management areas
that have been emphasized in recent grading government
projects (e.g., Barrett and Greene, 2001), including
government performance in financial management, capital
management, human resources management, information
technology, and managing for results.
Our final research question is, “Are the state‟s
management factors related to reform strategies?” We
hypothesized that the implementation of reform strategies
will be affected by the management conditions of the state
government. For example, we postulate that states with
high management scores in human resources, financial
practices and information technology will be in a better
position to implement reform strategies than those with
lower scores in these same areas.
437 PAQ FALL 2009
RESEARCH, DATA, AND METHODS
To examine the implementation of organization
reform strategies, we used both subjective survey data and
objective grading data to study various management issues
among state governments. A mailed survey regarding
reinventing government issues was sent to 223 state
administrators in the areas of administration, information
technology, and procurement and contracting. We received
52 responses with a response rate of 23 percent.1 The
objective grading data were taken from the Government
Performance Project conducted by the Maxwell School at
Syracuse University. The data issues relating to a
„management report card‟ in the areas of financial
management, capital management, human resources
management, information technology, and managing for
results (Barrett and Richard, 2001).
The survey questions for reform strategies are major
research variables that provide answers to the research
issues about popular reform strategies. Organizational
reform strategies consist of 12 statement questions
addressing such reform areas as employee changes,
structural changes, and system changes. Specific variables
are attrition activities, combining agency functions,
involving everyone in agency activities, laying-off
employees, merging units, simplifying rules and
procedures, encouraging early retirement, redesigning jobs
and positions, introducing bottom changes, introducing
buy-out packages, eliminating different layers, and
targeting hidden costs. The question items are related to
reform strategies identified by Cameron (1994). To
measure the level of implementation, responses are
measured on a 5-level Likert scale, from 1= no
consideration; 2 = considered, no action yet; 3 = action
planned; 4 = partially implemented; and 5 = fully
implemented. The 5 levels of measurements are similar to
PAQ FALL 2009 438
the measurements used in previous studies (e.g., Brudney,
Hebert, and Wright, 1999).
The questions about individual characteristics (from
the survey) and management factors (from the grading
card) are independent variables designed to examine their
relationships with reform strategies. The individual
characteristics include three variables about the
respondent‟s position, years in government services, and
years in the current position. The position variable is
measured as: (1) for manager and chief administrator, (2)
for finance and budge director, (3) for information
technology director, and (4) for others. The tenure
variables are the real numbers of years in government and
in the current position. The management factors are state
grades in financial management, capital management,
human resources management, information technology, and
managing for results, as well as a total „average‟ scores.
The grade variables are measured from 0 to 11, with 0 = F,
1 = D-, 2 = D, … 10 = A-, and 11=A, and so on.
The first research issue about the implementation of
reform strategies was examined in two ways. First, we
used a descriptive analysis of means and standard
deviations to show the ranking of the reform strategies.
Next, we conducted a factor analysis (Principal Component
Analysis) to see if these strategies can be grouped into
different factors to show the relationship of some reform
strategies. The second and the third research issues (about
the relationship between reform strategies and independent
variables) were also analyzed through two stages. The first
stage of analysis reported descriptive data (means and
standard deviations) of the 9 independent variables and
correlation analysis of these data. The second stage of
analysis involved multivariate regression analyses to
examine the effect of individual characteristics and
management factors (i.e., independent variables) on the
implementation of reform strategies (i.e., dependent
439 PAQ FALL 2009
variables).
RESEARCH ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS
As revealed in Table 1, state governments have
reported various levels of implementation of the 12
organizational reform strategies. The reform strategy with
the highest mean score relates to attrition activities (3.05,
with the standard deviation score of 1.31). The strategy
with the lowest score is associated with introducing buyout
packages (1.61, with the standard deviation score of 1.071).
Most of the reform strategies have scores between 2 and 3,
which indicates the situation of “considered, but no action
yet.” Two strategies had scores below 2, indicating that
they are associated with “no consideration”, or with
“introducing bottom change” or “introducing buy-out
packages”. The findings provide answers to the first
research issue regarding the implementation of popular
reform strategies.
The results of the factor analyses (see Table 2)
showed four general factors representing the
implementation of reform strategies (with an Eigen value
greater than 1.00). As the major factor (with a 2.049 Eigen
value and 24.893 percent of variance value), Factor 1
consists of four mixed reform strategies, including
combining functions, eliminating layers, simplifying units,
and attrition. Factor 2 (with a 2.122 Eigen value and
17.683 percent of variance value) includes three reform
strategies that are related to introducing bottom change,
merging units and introducing buy-out packages. Factor 3
(with a 2.049 Eigen value and 17.076 percent of variance
value) also includes three reform strategies that are related
to redesigning jobs, targeting hidden costs, and involving
everyone in the operation. These strategies are clearly
more time consuming in relation to implementation. Factor
4 (with a 2.001 Eigen value and 16.674 percent of variance
PAQ FALL 2009 440
value) includes two strategies that are related to employee
changes, encouraging early retirement and laying-off
employees.
Table 1. Ranking of Organizational Reform Strategy
Reform Strategy Mean S.D. Ranking
Attrition activities 3.05 1.31 1
Involving everyone 2.82 1.50 2
Redesigning jobs/positions 2.48 .99 3
Combining agency functions 2.46 1.22 4
Targeting hidden costs 2.45 1.15 5
Merging units 2.23 1.14 6
Eliminating different layers 2.19 1.09 7
Encouraging early retirement 2.18 1.27 8
Simplifying Units 2.15 1.08 9
Layoff Employee 2.00 1.26 10
Introducing bottom-up change 1.70 .77 11
Introducing Buy-out packages 1.61 1.07 12
Note: Levels of implementation are based on the Likert Scale - 1 (No
consideration), 2 (Considered, not action yet), 3 (Actions planned), 4
(Partially implemented), 5 (Fully implemented).
441 PAQ FALL 2009
Table 2. Factor Analysis of Reform Strategy
Reform Strategies F 1 F 2 F 3 F 4
(Change focus) (Mixed) (Bottom) (Time) (Employee)
Combining agency functions
(.904) .120 .252 -.105
Eliminating different layers
(.836) .285 .186 .055
Simplifying Units
(.812) .312 -.151 .132
Attrition activities
(.682) -.150 .314 .383
Introducing bottom-up change
.004 (.948) .020 -.154
Merging units
.358 (.634) -.011 .268
Introducing buy-out packages
.200 (.514) .054 .118
Redesigning jobs/positions
.090 .417 (.808) .124
Targeting hidden costs
.393 .126 (.749) .373
Involving everyone
.066 -.315 (.748) -.209
Encouraging early retirement
.057 -.056 .193 (.899)
Layoff Employee
.087 .221 -.119 (.841)
Rotation Sums
Eigen value (>1) 2.987 2.122 2.049 2.001
% of variance 24.893 17.683 17.076 16.674
Note: Extraction based on Principal Component Analysis and Rotation
based on Varimax with Kaiser Normalization. Reform items in each
factor are indicated in the parenthesis.
Table 3 provided means and deviations of nine
PAQ FALL 2009 442
independent variables representing individual
characteristics and management factors. The individual
characteristics showed that most respondents were
managers and chief administrators with 3.84 years of
experience in the government and 1.6 years experience in
their current position. The management factors showed
that most state governments received an average grade
between B- (7 points) and B (8 points) in financial
management, capital management, human resources
management, and information technology. The item
„managing for results‟ received the lowest average score
(6.40) and the largest standard deviation (2.33) and it is
graded between C+ and B-.2
The results of multivariate regression analyses
provide answers to the research questions about the effect
of individual characteristics and management factors on the
reform strategies (see Table 4). Respondent‟s tenure in
government is negatively related to the implementation of
reform Factor 3, which includes strategies of redesigning
jobs, targeting hidden cost and involving everyone. This
may mean that senior managers do not favor the
implementation of these strategies because they are related
to fundamental changes or because they are too time
consuming.
443 PAQ FALL 2009
Table 3. Responses of Individual Characteristics and
Management Factors
Item Mean S.D.
Individual Characteristics
Current Position (Position) 1.90 1.315
Years in Government (Y Government) 3.84 1.712
Years in Position (Y Position) 1.60 .904
Management Factors
Financial Management (FM) 7.63 1.720
Capital Management (CM) 7.27 1.856
Human Resources Management (HRM) 6.96 1.865
Information Technology (IT) 7.02 1.995
Managing for Results (MFR) 6.40 2.330
Average Grade (AG) 7.08 1.623
Note: N ranging from 49 to 50. Current position is measured as: 1=
manager or chief administrator, 2 = finance/budget director, 3 =
information technology director, 4 = others. Years in government and
positions are actually number of years of service.
Management factors are based on calculated scores of state report card
in the 5 management areas, from F=0, D-=1, D=2, D+=3, C-=4, C=5,
C+=6, B-=7, B=8, B+=9, A-=10, A=11 (see Barrett and Greene, 2001).
PAQ FALL 2009 444
Table 4. Results of Multiple Regression Analyses
Variables F 3 Early Introducing Eliminating
(Time) Retirement Buyout Package Layers
B (SE) B (SE) B (SE) B (SE)
Individual Characteristics
Position
-.096 (.322) -.101 (.202) -.076 (.180) .008 (.210)
Y Government
-.665 (.251)* -.105 (.158) -.041 (.146) -.041 (.152)
Y Position
.008 (.356) .201 (.357) -.248 (.303) -.150 (.333)
Management Factors
FM
-.360 (.425) .004 (.281) .167 (.254) .484 (.275)
CM
-.256 (.293) -.425 (.199* -.376 (.160)* .020 (.219)
HRM
-.503 (.457) .115 (.285) .218 (.249) .484 (.331)
IT
-.713 (.322) .375 (.232) .010 (.192) .530(.228)*
MFR
-.670 (.360) .156 (.198) .273 (.194) .166 (.203)
AG
2.071 (1.228) -.468 (.736) -.549 (.656) -1.668 (.773)*
(Constant)
5.618 (2.518) 4.537 (1.616) 4.388 (1.381) 2.388 (1.845)
R Square .562 .349 .427 .307
Adjusted
R Square .070 .083 .105 -.005
F score 1.141 1.310 1.325 .984
* indicating significance <.05
445 PAQ FALL 2009
Besides the tenure variable, the regression analyses
further support the impact of several management factors
on reform strategies. Capital management is negatively
related to the strategies of encouraging early retirement and
introducing buy-out packages. Because these two
strategies involve extensive financial cost and therefore
may not be appealing to managers, we believe these
findings are reasonable. Information technology is
positively related to the strategy of eliminating layers. This
finding is also important as it suggests that technology is
seen as an essential element in successful organizational
reform. Finally, the average grading score is negatively
related to the strategy of eliminating layers. This may
mean that states with total, good performance grades do not
support the strategy of eliminating layers because they
perceive themselves to already be efficient, and (therefore)
do not see any additional need to implement this strategy.
RESEARCH DISCUSSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS
The results of the empirical analyses have provided
answers to our research questions. First, on the issue of
popular reform strategies, the mean scores of reform
implementation supported our general understanding of
bureaucratic behavior. Similar to previous research
findings, public managers tend to be conservative and
cautious in the implementation of reform strategies
(Brudney, Hebert, and Wright, 1999; Moon and deLeon,
2001; Thompson, 2000). The top two strategies (attrition
activities and involving everyone, with the mean score
close to 3) do not require major structural or policy changes
with financial, and/or political costs. The three strategies
receiving low scores (laying-off employees, introducing
bottom change and introducing buyout packages), tend to
have financial costs, and may involve other political issues.
The findings from the factor analysis are interesting, as
PAQ FALL 2009 446
they indicate that public managers do not tend to adopt
single reform items, but instead prefer to adopt a whole
package of related reform strategies. The findings are
similar to previous studies using correlation analysis (e.g.,
Brudney, Hebert, and Wright, 1999). The results of the
factor analysis indicate some difficulties of measuring the
implementation of particular reform agendas in state
governments.
The findings of multiple regression analyses have
provided answers to the second and the third research
questions. On the relationship between reform strategies
and public manager‟s individual characteristics, we found a
negative relationship between the manager‟s tenure in
government and reform factor 3 (long-term change). This
means that senior public managers do not support reform
strategies involved in long-term commitment. The negative
relationship between manager‟s tenure and reinvention
reform is also noticed in the study of Kearney and his
colleagues (2000). The difference between our study and
Kearney‟s is that the latter report a negative relationship for
the tenure in the current position, not in the government
service. After comparing the findings from two studies, we
believe our finding is sound, as we have seen a consistent
negative relationship for the tenure in the government
service, where their findings showed both positive and
negative relationships for the tenure in current position
(Kearney, Feldman, and Scavo, 2000).
On the relationship between reform strategies and
management factors, our study revealed the importance of
two management factors, capital management and
information technology. For the financial condition, the
study shows the negative relationship between capital
management and two reforms strategies (encouraging early
retirement, introducing buyout package) that have financial
consequences. The study, however, did not find a
significant relationship between financial management and
447 PAQ FALL 2009
reform strategies. The difference between capital
management and financial management is that the former
examines the state‟s management of capital assets and
future needs, while the latter assesses the government‟s
current financial operation and management (Barrett and
Greene, 2001). The previous findings on this issue have
been mixed as some studies indicated a significant
relationship between fund balance and reform attitude, but
not reform actions (e.g., Kearney, Feldman, and Scavo,
2000). Again, we think our findings are valid because of
the importance of the financial variables being so closely
related to the nature of the reform strategies. State
governments with good capital management scores do not
support the implementation of reform strategies that
requires major financial outlays.
Finally, our finding about the positive relationship
between information technology and reform strategy of
eliminating layers is important not only for the studies of
organizational reforms but also for the research on
electronic government (E-government). Our study reveals
that state governments with high scores on information
technology development also reported high scores on the
strategy of eliminating layers. Previous studies about the
impact of information technology or E-government on
public organizations have provided inconsistent findings.
On one hand, studies report that the adoption of E-
government has improved service delivery, reduced costs,
made government more efficient (e.g., West, 2000) and has
contributed to enhanced performance management and
reduced red tape (e.g., Brown, 1999; Moon and
Bretschneider, 2002). Other studies, however, have shown
mixed results about specific effects. For example, Moon
(2002) reported that municipal E-government development
has not made a significant contribution to cost savings,
revenue generating, or downsizing--even though it has
brought changes in procedural practices and task
PAQ FALL 2009 448
environments. Heintze and Bretschnieder (2000) found
that information technology adoption has direct effects on
the performance of the organization and decision-making,
but little impact on agency‟s structure and communication.
Again, our finding here has provided empirical evidence to
support the effect of information technology and to clarify
some confusion in previous studies.
CONCLUSION
This study examined the implementation of
organizational reform strategies among US state
governments. Based on the analysis of both subjective
survey data and objective grading data, we reported
findings about the implementation of reform strategies and
the effect of individual characteristics and management
factors on the reforms. The findings have provided
empirical evidence to clarify old questions in previous
studies and also indicated new issues for futures studies.
These issues about the reform experience and lessons are
important for public administration researchers to develop
additional theories about administrative reform (Caiden,
1999; Rosenbloom, 1998).
The present study has contributed to the literature
on reinventing government as it examined several new
variables that are related to key concepts of the reinvention.
Specifically, this study focuses on specific organizational
variables that are related to three important areas of
organizational reforms. First, workforce reduction covers
employee changes in the organization. Second, work
redesign addresses position and structural changes in the
organization. Finally, system changes refer to attitude and
cultural changes in the organization. These changes are
central to the reinventing government movement (e.g.,
cutting red tape, empowering employees, introducing new
changes).
449 PAQ FALL 2009
The results of the empirical analyses have provided
evidence to clarify previous research questions and indicate
the new issues. For example, the study confirms the ideas
that public managers tend to be conservative and cautious
in the implementation of any reform strategies, and that
public managers tend to adopt a package of related reform
strategies. In addition, the study tests the relationship
between reform strategies and individual characteristics and
management factors, and indicates the effect of tenure in
government service, capital management performance, and
information technology development. The findings
associated with tenure and information technology are
similar to some earlier studies, and are useful in clarifying
old or inconsistent findings. The importance of capital
management is a new finding in the explanation of
organizational reforms. Future studies of public
management reforms may want to follow our approach by
considering these new issues in the development of
research questions and selection of research variables.
NOTE
The authors thank comments and suggestions from
anonymous reviewers on the findings of factor analysis and
the explanation of regression analysis.
1. The survey was sent to state administrators in the areas of
administration, information technology and procurement/contracting.
It was addressed to the highest level manager in each organization. Our
active pool of responses was 223. After two follow-up mailings, we
received 52 responses, for a response rate of 24 percent. Due to the
low response rate, we used a follow up, phone based version of the
survey to sure that we have achieved at least one response from each
state.
2. We also tested the correlation of these independent variables. The
results of correlation analyses show that the tenure variable (years in
the government) is negative related to the grade of information
PAQ FALL 2009 450
technology (with the significant correlation coefficient of -.361) and
human resources management (with the significant correlation
coefficient of -.303).
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